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'Hard Times Come Again No More' Is A Song Of Comfort For Brooklyn Man

HOWARD GOTFRYD: Sometimes I have this general sense of numbness because the concept of this is just so overwhelming. And, you know, in all my years, I've never really experienced anything quite like these times.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Howard Gotfryd is a copy editor in Brooklyn, N.Y.

GOTFRYD: Brooklyn has been a real hot spot. The owners of the business that I work for are members of the Hasidic community, which is just down the road from us that has had a really huge spike in coronavirus cases. We have lost several of our employees. It's been very difficult to watch.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: He was one of many of you who wrote in to tell us about the songs that are getting you through this time. For Gotfryd, it's a live cover by Emmylou Harris and the Nash Ramblers of "Hard Times Come Again No More."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HARD TIMES COME AGAIN NO MORE")

EMMYLOU HARRIS: (Singing) Let us pause in life's pleasures and count her many tears. Oh, we all share in sorrow with the poor.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Gotfryd's parents were both immigrants who survived the Holocaust.

GOTFRYD: I started hearing Holocaust stories when I was 6 years old, so it has been ingrained in me that there is suffering in the world. This song in particular is really a plea to people who are more fortunate to consider people who are less fortunate. So, you know, our policy here, you know, in our home is not only to donate to relief organizations, but also to help people we know who are less fortunate than we are.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HARD TIMES COME AGAIN NO MORE")

HARRIS: (Singing) Though we seek love and beauty and music light and gay, there are frail forms fainting at the door.

GOTFRYD: This song really speaks to, you know, the morals and the mores with which I was raised, you know, by my mom and my grandmother, who also survived, and, you know, always made sure that I was aware that I was lucky, you know, that I had an education, that I had food to eat, that I had clothes to wear, you know, a nice place to live.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HARD TIMES COME AGAIN NO MORE")

EMMYLOU HARRIS AND THE NASH RAMBLERS: (Singing) Hard times, hard times come again no more.

HARRIS: (Singing) Many days you have lingered too long around my door.

EMMYLOU HARRIS AND THE NASH RAMBLERS: (Singing) Oh, hard times come again no more.

GOTFRYD: And my mother - when I asked her how she survived 10 months in Auschwitz concentration camp at the end of the war, she said to me, I always had hope. She died about 16 years ago. And in honor of her, our daughter was born a year later, and we named her Hope. So, you know, I try to keep up hope that, you know, we'll get through this. I don't think that things will be exactly the way they were before the pandemic began. But there - I believe there will come a time when we will be able to reemerge from our homes.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HARD TIMES COME AGAIN NO MORE")

EMMYLOU HARRIS AND THE NASH RAMBLERS: (Singing) Oh, hard times come again no more.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Howard Gotfryd of Brooklyn, N.Y., sharing Emmylou Harris and The Nash Ramblers' cover of "Hard Times Come Again No More."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HARD TIMES COME AGAIN NO MORE")

EMMYLOU HARRIS AND THE NASH RAMBLERS: (Singing) Hard times, hard times come again no more. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.